How does Shakespeare use language to present Viola's feelings in Twelfth Night?

Answer 1

It's a play, remember. What people say is always seen in the context of what they do. Does Feste tell Malvolio that he is the curate and that Malvolio is demonstrating his insanity by protesting his sanity? Yes. Should we believe him? No, he is lying in order to further torture poor Malvolio. When Viola tells Orsino in Act II Scene 4 that she had a sister, should we believe her? No, she is talking about herself, but she cannot say so in as many words because Orsino thinks she is a man. This is actually a fine example of how lines in a play can be much more powerful than the mere words. Viola says of the imaginary sister, "She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought and with a green and yellow melancholy she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more, but indeed our shows are more than will, for still we prove much in our vows, but little in our love." On the face of it this appears to be a sad story of a woman and a generalization about men and women's abilities to love. It does not look at all like a passionate declaration of Viola's feelings, but in fact it is. Because she cannot tell Orsino she loves him without blowing her cover, she tells the story of the sister's concealed love as a way of telling her own concealed love, and belittles the love of men to say how powerful her undisclosed female love is.